


A fortiori

by deepcreek



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Femslash, First War with Voldemort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Not Canon Compliant, Slow Burn, excessive latin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9059410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepcreek/pseuds/deepcreek
Summary: Two women are tearing at a regime, from the outside and the inside. They meet in the middle and they find each other beautiful.





	1. Toujours pur

**Author's Note:**

> Tags, warnings, and rating may change as the situation continues.
> 
> This is an AU in which Harry Potter is never born. It will probably get quite dark, so if you're not up for Love In The Time of the Totalitarian Racist Regime please don't get invested in this.

Cissy and her sisters are sitting around Papa in the sitting room looking at the tapestry. The Ancestors look back at them in their various ways. Cissy is four or five, and she is just learning to read from the scrolling names her forebears coax her through.

“Who can tell me the family motto?” her father asks, pushing his reading glasses up somewhat absentmindedly.

Bella squirms, restrained from shouting out the answer only because she had been admonished for it yesterday. Andie, at six, is a bit bored with the exercise, and leans in to examine a particularly ornate flourish in the fabric. Cissy raises her hand high, thinking of Mother’s Monday morning posture lesson. She isn’t a Rosier, but Mother never fails to _age quod agis_ her as the need demands. “Pay attention to what you are doing! Don’t you know the blood you carry? We do what we do well in this house.”

 

Many years later, as she watches her husband’s friends carry the prisoners down into their manor-house basement, she will think spitefully that perhaps her mother had such high expectations for her because she considered her other daughters to be failures already. She will shake her head, smile at Crabbe who is bringing her husband’s poisons into his workroom, and thank her dear, departed father for the lesson he taught them all that day.

 

“ _Toujours pur_ ,” she tells her father. “Always pure.”

Cygnus, startled by his youngest child’s poise, frowns for a moment.

“Well,” he says after a moment, “That’s a very elementary translation. _Pur_ is a word of ethics, virtue, righteousness, as well as the lineage and the reputation we must guard.”

He remembers, at last, to smile at Cissy. “Do you know the rest of it?”

She shakes her head, wide-eyed. It is the first time she remembers her father choosing her above her sisters.

“ _Toujours pur, toujours dur!_ ” Bella declares, unable to keep quiet another moment.

“And what does that mean, Bella dear?”

“True and unchanged.”

He nods. “To hold to our standards, we must be strong. And we must not let others know how steadfast we are until they earn our trust. Andie, what’s the earliest date you can see?”

The tapestry obligingly unfurls, bringing its oldest sections closer to the light.

“Twelve sixty-eight?”

“Good eyesight, my sweet! We arrived here the court wizards of kings, and we held our power and our lineage through the ages, longer than any other family this island knows. Why, even this tapestry is older than any of the wizarding schools!”

“And that means,” he confides to his daughters, “that we know some things that none of them will teach you.”

So it is that on the day Lily Evans is born, Narcissa Black first learns to hide her mind.

 

__

 _Toujours pur:_ Always pure, virtuous, or righteous.

 _Age quod agis:_ Do what you do well. Pay attention to what you are doing.


	2. Suum cuique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily's sorting surprises Narcissa.

Narcissa is watching the Sorting for the sixth time, attentive, still, and upright at Lucius’ left hand. She can see the silhouette of the engagement ring in the breast pocket of his prefect’s robes. She is exactly what her family made her to be, and she is trying to be glad about it.

 

The first one that surprises her is Evans, Lily. Evans’ hair is a mess, because she’s twelve and because the boat ride across the lake has done no good things to her pouf of thick curls. Her robe is crooked and about an inch too long, and she jumps and glances up at the chandeliers nervously when a drop of wax falls on the back of her neck.

 

Lucius’ shoulder rises and falls with a hiss of breath. She looks over at him with affectionate curiosity in her eyes.

“Another Mudblood. Are we going to get stuck with her?”

Cissy shakes her head, suppressing a yawn. Andromeda’s portrait had screamed when her mother had burnt it the night before, and the tapestry her older sister had loved so much was not taking kindly to the alteration. She hadn’t slept well.

“She hasn’t got any wizarding blood at all. That one won’t be safe anywhere but Hufflepuff.”

 

When the Sorting Hat enthusiastically declares her a Gryffindor after about fifteen seconds of consultation, Lily Evans does not get up from her seat. She turns to look directly at Narcissa and raises one copper eyebrow. Her bright green eyes and her fierce, toothy grin are astonishing, and for a moment Cissy can neither move nor speak.

The Gryffindor colors look dreadful on Lily’s pale skin, and the mother of one of the half-blood second-years was left for dead in front of the Ministry yesterday morning but Cissy wants her to sit at the Slytherin table, not just because she will look stunning in black when she loses the rest of her baby fat, but also because she wants to be on her side, this girl with teeth like a shark and hair that burns brighter than her mother’s spells.

  
A few minutes later, Snape, Severus comes to sit at her betrothed’s right hand. Narcissa does not think about Lily again for a while. She listens, ladylike, while the men around her talk of Thompson’s mother in unsympathetic tones. She remembers the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

\--

_Suum cuique:_ Each to their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm taking my dates from the Harry Potter wiki. Lily is about twelve or thirteen at this time, and Narcissa is sixteen or seventeen. This is too large an age gap for you to see any in-school shenanigans from this fic. I'm still planning a Room of Requirement scene, of course. All young confused queer girls deserve a Room of Requirement.


	3. Utrimque roditur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to Hogwarts.

Narcissa isn’t so crude as to wear her wedding ring on her finger, where it might drop into a potion or fly off with the flex of a wand. When she strides into her first Hogwarts friends and family visit in a swirl of formal black robes, the glint of gold on her finger is an illusion which her preoccupied husband hasn’t noticed yet.

“There are some things, my dear, which one cannot discuss over Flue or by Owl,” Lucius had told her over dinner the previous evening. Narcissa had smiled at him prettily and asked whether she might accompany him, to catch up on old school friends. With the recent spate of betrayals, and with Bella so painfully obvious as to her affections, Mama had warned her not to fade from the public eye. “Your Malfoy’s business affairs want steering,” she had declared as attendants helped Cissy into her wedding dress, “and a Black is always at the helm of her family.”

There was an affectation among the older Slytherins for artificial Dark Marks, confused patches of ink delicately overlapping the hem of school robes. Severus, Mrs. Malfoy noted with approval, wore his arms bare.

She sipped her tea discreetly in a corner of the visiting parlor as her husband boasted of recent events which had fallen in his favor, inky black flashing at his wrist as he gestured. Severus leaned into the conversation with undisguised eagerness.

“And you’re not supposed to know yet,” her husband concluded in a lowered tone that pricked up Narcissa’s ears, “but Our Lord has decided to give you the mark as soon as you are graduated. I’ve never known him to make a decision so quickly before!”

Narcissa rose with a deliberately feminine swish of her skirts.

“My, it’s a bit stuffy in here, Lucius. I dare say they don’t have as much use for this room as they did when you and I were here.”

She found Severus’ responding smirk decidedly unpleasant.

“Oh, do feel free to take some air, dear,” her husband replied, sparing her a glance of consideration before turning back to tell his half-blood protege more tales of pure-blood resurgence.

....

Narcissa doesn’t know what she needs from the Room, or she doesn’t know how to ask for it, but she trusts the magic of the castle’s walls. Hogwarts hid her tears and assignations, never whispering a word of what she did when the Minister’s daughter kissed her behind the Quidditch bleachers. She paces up and down the seventh-floor corridor, her mind filled with snakes’-heads and other people’s dead relatives, wondering if the school still counts her as its own.

When the door is there and she opens it, she finds a room in disarray. Piles of books are half-tumbled to the ground, and there is a dueling dummy with several splinters of wood through its anatomy. She steps over the threshold to get a better look, and the door swings shut behind her. The girl who closed it is sweaty, disheveled, and radiating fury. Her hair is slipping out of a hasty ponytail, and although she has shot up at least a foot and a half her robes are still an inch too big in every dimension.

“How---what---you--- you’re not supposed to be in here!” She’s gripping her wand so tightly that it seems in danger of snapping.

Narcissa shrugs and curtsies formally. “I usually find this room to be empty as well. I’m Cissy.”

The other girl glares. “I know who you are, Malfoy.”

This is certainly Lily Evans, then. Interesting that, despite her brutal aim with the dummy, nothing has flown at Narcissa yet. She sighs and sits in the chair nearest the door, careful not to turn her back to the sixth-year in her Gryffindor robes. She settles her skirts around her.

“Who am I then, Miss Evans?”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re a murderer.”

“Hmmm.” Narcissa taps her thumb absently on the side of her armrest.

“If you are a competent legilimens, or know any decent truth spells, you may check for yourself. I have never harmed any Muggles or Muggle-born with the intention to do so.”

Lily’s wand is shoved through her hair, but she gazes intently into Narcissa’s eyes, muttering so low under her breath that it’s only familiarity with the spell that helps Narcissa identify it. It isn’t the same as those her father showed her so long ago, but it is familiar enough to make her wish she was home again, under a tapestry flickering with firelight and surrounded by the comforting words of supercilious ancestors.

The younger woman nods, finally, crosses her arms, clearly unsatisfied. “Why did you marry Malfoy?”

“I’m a Black. It’s what we do. Unlike Sirius, I was happy to do it.” Narcissa smiles, but she still hasn’t broken eye contact with her interrogator. This will make her response less convincing. She doesn’t care; a little fire-headed Order of the Phoenix girl wouldn’t be believed on any of this by anyone that matters.

Said girl laughs under her breath. “Andromeda says you just don’t want to get burned off the tapestry.”

Narcissa's stare is frank.

“If I wasn’t on the tapestry and the Malfoys didn’t value me, who would I be then?”

Lily has got closer to her as their conversational volume has lowered, and Narcissa can smell the plush sweat of her. There’s a reluctant curiosity in those green eyes Severus won’t shut up about. She feels a little spiteful towards this girl who questions, who perspires, who is so artless and angry and loved.

In sum, Lily Evans is charming, and she hates it more mildly than she should. She crooks her finger, tilts her head, an “I have a secret” gesture that beckons Evans closer, and she takes her by the hand and kisses her.

Narcissa feels the softness of a startled cheek that turns to meet her lips with lips, the pull of questions she doesn’t want to answer, but the sensation she brings away with her is that of nail-bitten fingers grasping her own a little too tightly. When she glances down to see if she will be slapped, she sees a quill-callused hand cutting through her false wedding ring, and she has to leave. She has to curtsy with the sarcasm she holds closer than any confidante. She has to wipe her face delicately with her pocket handkerchief, not knowing if the glossy Muggle product on Evans’ lips shows on her own makeup.

When she picks up her teacup once again and settles into the plush armchair donated by a Black two hundred years ago, Severus is staring at her husband as if he operates the stars. It disgusts her no less than it did when she left, but her dislike of the situation has shifted somehow.

....

She is hanging up her husband’s cloak in the hall, a gesture of affection and surveillance which she doesn’t trust to house elves. They are not arguing, because people of their sort do not argue with their wives, but they are disputing.

“It’s just that I don’t see, dear, why you’re recruiting a half-blood so strongly. He’s expressed no intention of being merciful to that sort.”

Lucius is close behind her in a way that makes the back of her neck itch. His hand on her shoulder, when it arrives, is too heavy.

“Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the cause, Cissy. I should think you would know that.”

She nods and discontinues their conversation.

....  
 _Utrimque roditur:_ Everywhere I go, they gnaw at me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lily is about 17 and Narcissa about 20 or 21 here.


	4. Quid ultra faciam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches; born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.

The other prisoners are in the basement, so recently reinforced--although, by the sound of it, there is one with her husband in his study already. The woman, though, they drag by her hair into the formal dining room, where her enemies' leader is pacing erratically. Bella, trying ineffectually to match his steps, is dismissed with an absentminded hand as the man turns to face the new arrival.

"Where's your little boy, Potter?"

The woman raises her head from the kneeling bow which Goyle has thrust her into. She stares at Voldemort long and hard, her jaw set. Narcissa recognizes the expression of someone who expects a slap, and welcomes it as confirmation of moral righteousness.

Instead the Dark Lord sighs, passing a hand over his forehead.

"Severus, you may do the honors."

The room quiets as the half-blood steps forward, grasps Lily Potter by the chin, and gazes intently into her eyes. His movements are precise and brutal, and from where she stands by the door Narcissa can see Potter's expression. Astonishing that a woman so terrified is only shaking slightly.

At last Snape releases her. "The child is dead," he informs his master flatly.

Nagini hisses, and the corners of Voldemort's mouth tighten. "When did this happen, and how was I not informed?"

Lily is staring at the floor as if it was her secret-keeper, and she is wringing her hands where they are bound behind her. Narcissa is glad to be the hostess, who stands to welcome late entrances and who is well out of the way of spells and spattered fluids.

"My lord, the child was born dead two weeks ago. The Order has been concealing this from us since."

 "Once again, Severus," the Dark Lord sneers, "the intelligence you bring us is useless." He tilts his head to examine Lily, absentmindedly brushing a smear of ash from her cheek. "What shall we do with her?"

Her husband's protege pales, and Narcissa turns her back on the room, disgusted with the entire affair and hopeful that some late arrival will bring a task that permits her to exit.

She turns and sees Kreacher waiting expectantly, and she knows how she can save a life where two have been lost.

 

"My lord, my milk is failing."

Her declaration turns lines of hooded heads in her direction, and she sees her husband's eyes widen in fear-- _for me, for our child, or for the children I might bear, Lucius?_ Her stride is a calculated mix of humility and self-assurance as she approaches the dais (a hasty plywood construction covered over with carpet).

She lowers her voice to suit her audience of one. "I fear for my child, and for the Malfoy line. If this Mudblood still has milk in her, why not put her to use?"

"And after the child is weaned, Narcissa?" She can feel his probing mind as she meets his eyes, and she fills her head with careless cruelty and the pride of a mother whose child can still be strong and pure.

She shrugs. "Who knows? She may lay a pretty trap for the Order of the Phoenix. If our war is advanced sufficiently by that time, we will have no further need of her."

Voldemort's smile has points on it.

 

 Lily is in the scullery, where that nasty werewolf is determining whether she will serve use or should be discarded. Narcissa doesn't wish to think about what she has put Potter through, personally now, and so, with the mental training of twenty years, she doesn't. She is in her maid's chamber, barring the windows with the pokers and reinforcing the outer door with the bedframe, arguing with her husband. Why is it that when the redheaded girl appears where she should not be, Narcissa argues with her husband?

" _Sanctimonia vincet semper_ , Lucius. You of all people should know that." She tries to keep her tone more playful than snappish.

 "The Potter woman has killed Death Eaters personally, my dear. You mock me with my own motto for my concern with your welfare?"

Eye contact is a Black family weapon. Narcissa turns from fixing the mattress to the floor and uses it. "Husband dear, I don't mean to mock you. But I fear for the survival of our child. If Mudblood milk will save him, all we can do is weigh our risks."

Her spouse's eyes are watering, and as if on cue, Draco begins wailing from the nursery next door. She turns to survey the cell she has created.

"Now, what precautions are we missing?"

 

When Rodolfus arrives the manor at with the news that the Longbottoms have vanished, the Malfoys are transforming the fireplace to a wall of brick together.

...

 _Quid ultra faciam_ : What else should we do?

 _Sanctimonia Vincet Semper:_ Purity will always conquer.


End file.
